


today must be my lucky day (baby, you are the prototype)

by tvfanatic97



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Exes to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt Peter Parker, Porn with Feelings, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfanatic97/pseuds/tvfanatic97
Summary: “Spider-Man. Dumpster. Dying,” Miles rushes out those three words in quick succession, leaving MJ to put it together and try to understand what he’s trying to tell her based on context clues.Once all the clues comes together and the full picture coalesces in her mind, she’s overcome by a gripping fear she hasn’t  felt in just over a decade. She freezes in place as a once-familiar churning at the pit of her stomach starts up, her hands starting to shake with a nauseating mixture of adrenaline and anxiety.It’s been so long since she was put in the position where she was faced with a bleeding Spider-Man, been so long since she’s even seen the man beneath the mask.-Or: A decade after breaking up, MJ is reunited with her ex when she finds him bleeding out in a dumpster, re-awakening dormant feelings.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Miles Morales, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 36
Kudos: 173





	today must be my lucky day (baby, you are the prototype)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spideysmjs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/gifts).



> Marieeee, you love break up + make up/meet again after hs fics and ily so here's a fic w that plus pwf (porn w feelings) and patching up, all your fave things just to say I appreciate you an immense amount; who'd have thought our friendship would grow to this all from ao3 comments? Anyway, happy birthday and I hope you have the bestest day <3
> 
> (I even went as far as to copy your titling style w the all lower caps song lyric title lol. Title from "prototype" by outkast)

MJ pauses on her way to the kitchen, taking a moment to tie her damp, post-shower hair up in a haphazard bun at the top of her head that’s more to get her hair out of her face than for style, before she carries on to the fridge.

She opens her fridge and is scanning its pitiful contents: a half empty bottle of milk, a jar of Nutella and a Tupperware container with leftovers Rio had kindly given her, knowing she was on a string of back-to-back long 12-hour shifts and wouldn’t have the time to cook for herself. She grabs the container of food and pads across the small space of her kitchen towards the microwave and is just about to start heating the food up when she’s interrupted by some frantic knocking at her front door.

She hesitates, takes a peek at the clock on the microwave which tells her it’s just gone past 9:30pm and decides to ignore it but the knocking continues and she hears her neighbor’s equally frantic whisper-shouts of “ _MJ!”_ and _“Michelle!_ ”.

“Miles, did you forget to take the chicken out of the freezer like Rio asked you to again? Because I don’t have any defrosted chicken I can swap with—” she starts to say in greeting when she’s opened the door, before she notices her young neighbor’s face. His face looks sallow and panicked, like he’s just seen a ghost. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Uh,” Miles starts, hesitates as he tries to get a hold of himself and find his words, “There’s, um, I found—”

“It’s okay, take your time,” MJ tries to reassure him, keeping her voice even and stepping forward to place a calming hand on his shoulder to encourage him.

“Spider-Man. Dumpster. Dying,” Miles rushes out those three words in quick succession, leaving MJ to put it together and try to understand what he’s trying to tell her based on context clues.

Once all the clues comes together and the full picture coalesces in her mind, she’s overcome by a gripping fear she hasn’t felt in just over a decade. She freezes in place as a once-familiar churning at the pit of her stomach starts up, her hands starting to shake with a nauseating mixture of adrenaline and anxiety.

It’s been so long since she was put in the position where she was faced with a bleeding Spider-Man, been so long since she’s even seen the man beneath the mask.

She’s brought out of her haze by Miles’ tentative and concerned, “Michelle?”

MJ blinks back all the confusing feelings warring within her then clears her throat a few times before finally speaking. “Take me to him.”

She follows after the teenager as he leads her down the four flights of stairs and out to the alleyway at the side of their building to a dumpster where she sees a familiar mass covered in red and blue lying on top of the trash who is bleeding profusely, just as Miles had said.

Living in New York and working in the ER department of a busy hospital has meant she constantly sees and hears stories about Spider-Man— sensationalized pieces calling him a criminal from the Daily Bugle, sentimental pieces from the Bugle’s rival, the Daily Globe, chronicling his heroism, stories from people who come into the ER after he’s either saved them or after he’s beaten them up, with the latter usually being brought by the cops in handcuffs.

It’s been virtually impossible to avoid him, he’s been a constant presence that loomed at the background of her life no matter how much she tried to ignore his existence and move on. MJ still finds her breath hitching in her throat at the sight of him regardless; bleeding out in their apartment building dumpster, and actually physically in front of her, in the flesh for the first time in over a decade.

“Help me move him,” she instructs Miles, trying to keep her voice calm and steady so as to not panic Miles and so as to not give away the overwhelming surge of emotions his appearance has brought up in her.

With great effort, the two of them manage to maneuver him out of the dumpster, dropping him a couple of times in the process though he never wakes up, which in itself worries MJ. Then with Miles holding him at the top end with his arms hooked under Peter’s armpits and MJ carrying him by his feet, they slowly make their way back up to her fourth floor apartment and though MJ usually avoids using their building’s elevator, she’s more than grateful for it on this occasion.

When they arrive back in her apartment MJ has Miles set Peter down on the floor whilst she rummages through her linen cupboard in search of all the towels she can find, which she grabs and uses to cover her couch before she has Miles assist her in lying him down on it.

There are various charities that operate within her hospital, footing the bill for those that are uninsured that come through the doors of their ER but they can only provide so much coverage, leaving plenty of people behind. Not to mention the locals who are too scared to come to the hospital in such an official capacity, not knowing if staff will call the police, immigration, or child services, or all three on them. As a result, MJ, along with Rio who works with her though she’s in a more senior position, has taken to providing basic medical help to those left behind outside of her working hours, running an unofficial clinic to help the people out of her apartment.

As a result, she has more than a few medical supplies stocked up in her apartment. Between that and him just happening to show up near her apartment building, it’s almost as if this was bound to happen, like all roads would lead them here eventually after all this time. MJ dismisses that ridiculous thought, instead focusing on gathering all the supplies she needs as she knows time is critical.

After having placed everything she’ll need on the coffee table by the couch where Peter’s unconscious body lies, she presses the spider emblem at the center of his chest and almost sighs in relief when his suit slackens around him, glad that some things about him haven’t changed.

From the corner of her eye she sees Miles raise a curious eyebrow either confused that’s how the suit works or that MJ would even know to do that, but she doesn’t have time to waffle through an excuse that doesn’t reveal that she knows Spider-Man’s identity. Instead, she quickly pulls his suit down to his waist, exposing his chest which she finds covered in various cuts and bruises that paint his skin in ugly purples and yellows. MJ’s breath gets caught in her throat at the sight but she manages to get a hold of herself before she goes to her kitchen sink where she quickly, but thoroughly washes her hands then dons some gloves, ready to get to work.

Despite her best attempts to calm herself, she finds herself having to wrack her brain and remember all her training which usually just comes to her like second nature. She tries to think about what she needs to do but all her mind can focus on is that the man she once upon a time thought of as the love of her life is lying on her couch unconscious and bleeding out, which should spur her into action and yet she’s frozen.

“MJ, what can I do to help?”

Miles’ question is what finally gets her to focus on the present. She’s lived in this apartment for four going on five years, has known Miles since he was just eleven and used to come to about her waist but he’s since shot up and is slowly growing into a man; having watched him grow, she feels a sisterly protectiveness over him. She knows that he views her the same, his protectiveness apparent in the determined set of his jaw and the way he firmly stands his ground, prepared to stand there all night if she asks.

“You’ve done more than enough, Miles. Now I need you to go home and I need you to not tell anyone about this.” A beat, then, “Even your parents.”

She thinks Miles might protest, remind her of how she’d told him to never agree to keep secrets with adults when he was younger, especially not from his parents but surprisingly he concedes, “Okay.” He turns to head out of her front door but pauses with his hand on the door knob. “I’ll be back to check on you in the morning. Text me if you need me.”

Once Miles is gone, MJ works on getting Peter’s mask off and she’s momentarily startled at the sight of his face. His deep set eye bags give away the sheer exhaustion he carries with him. There’s the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow forming on his face which makes him appear more rugged and older, mature, and yet there’s still a striking youthfulness to him, like he’s the fresh-faced boy who’d been so many firsts for her.

Steeling herself, MJ tries to remember all her basic trauma training to help guide her on what to do.

She first deals with the gaping wound at his side. At this point the bleeding has slowed down to an ooze, reassuring her of the fact that his own body is working to curb the bleeding. She checks the wound to ensure there’s no debris in it, cleans it as necessary then gets to work stitching him up.

She’s had extensive training and years of experience of this. Her hand is steadier than it had been when she had to do this as a teenager, even in her state of mild panic so she’s able to stitch up the wound and apply some dressing fairly quickly.

That’s one issue dealt with, but looking over him she can see there’s so many other smaller wounds and cuts she’ll need to deal with. She feels overwhelmed in a way she hasn’t done since her first ever shift when she first qualified, faced with the chaotic ER department of one of the most populous cities in the world for the first time.

As she’s trying to remember all her basic training and make a plan for how to deal with the man in front of her, he suddenly gasps awake, sitting up and immediately leaping onto her ceiling, startled.

“Peter,” MJ calls up to him, keeping her voice calm and steady. “Please can you calm down and get down. It’s me, it’s M—”

“ _MJ_?” he asks, interrupting her, his head tilting to the side in apparent confusion as he starts to take her and her surroundings in. “What are you… How did I…”

He stumbles through his questions, wanting to ask multiple things all at once, but he doesn’t get the chance to ask any of them as he suddenly passes out again, falling onto her floor with a resounding thud she knows she’ll hear about from her downstairs neighbor Gloria tomorrow.

Sighing, MJ gets up and goes to where he lies on the floor to try and move him back onto the couch. With great effort, she eventually manages to drag his body and get him back up onto the couch where he can lie over her towels and not get blood on any of her belongings; she’s learnt her lesson from the rug in her childhood bedroom she ended up having to throw away when no amount of hydrogen peroxide would get rid of the blood that had seeped so deep into the fabric that it looked like an intentional design choice.

He pulled at his stitches when he leapt up onto her ceiling and the wound has started to ooze blood again, and the sight makes MJ start to panic once more. But she manages to catch herself, compartmentalising so she can treat him like any other patient that comes through the doors of the ER department.

She quickly re-stitches him up then looks him over as she tries to formulate a plan for how to deal with all his injuries. She decides to go back to the basics, first checking over his wounds to ensure none of them are bleeding and need to be dealt with immediately before she starts on a primary survey.

A, airway: she’s already seen his chest moving up and down normally with quiet breathing and he was just talking to her, but she still takes the time to lean down and listen for a minute, Peter’s warm breath hitting the shell of her ear as she does so. Once she’s satisfied he’s fine she moves on.

B, breathing: she grabs her stethoscope from her kit on the coffee table and listens to his chest. Ideally she knows he should have an X-Ray to rule out any rib fractures and resultant punctured lungs but all she can do is work with what she’s got and for now she’s satisfied that there’s no imminent threat to deal with.

C, circulation: she listens to his heart using her stethoscope, counts the beats per minute then when she’s done, puts the cuff of the portable machine donated to their informal clinic and uses it to check his blood pressure. Again, she knows that all of this is rudimentary and what he really needs is a hospital but he’s here on her couch so it’s up to her to save him.

D, disability: she takes a pen torch and quickly checks over his pupils and they respond normally so at least she can be reassured he doesn’t have a major head injury or at least as much as she can be without him having a CAT scan.

After that, following a moment’s hesitation, she takes his suit fully off his body and leaves him in just his boxers before she gets to work checking him over from head to toe. She runs her fingers through his hair, which he now keeps slightly shorter than he did when they were teenagers, and checks for any bumps or scrapes on his scalp. When she’s satisfied there’s nothing she works her way down the rest his body, checking every inch of exposed skin for injuries which she deals with as she comes across them— cleaning, stitching and plastering, as necessary. There’s nothing she can do about the bruising besides wait for it to heal, and with his accelerated healing it hopefully shouldn’t take too much time.

She's in the process of cleaning him up and finishing up, and is considering whether it’s worth starting up a bag of fluids to get into him when Peter wakes up again, though this time he’s less startled and fortunately doesn’t leap up and stick to the ceiling again.

“Thank you,” he gets out in a harsh whisper that makes MJ momentarily pause her actions before she carries on.

She doesn’t bother responding to him, just gets up and starts to clean up all the bloody gauze and gloves.

Once she’s done cleaning up she comes to perch on the coffee table so she can look down at him before she speaks to him, “So, do you wanna tell me how you wound up bleeding out in a dumpster?”

For a while Peter doesn’t respond, just stares up at her and takes her in, his eyes roving across her face. Being under his watchful gaze stirs up old feelings that have lain dormant within her for years and she almost wants to shy away from him but holds his stare defiantly.

Eventually he clears his throat then, “I don’t wanna burden you with all that. You’ve already done enough.”

And _that_ , that reminds her of why they had parted ways in their freshman year of college. It’s astounding how so much can change yet remain exactly the same even with the passage of time.

Before she can stop herself, she rolls her eyes at his words. “God, here we go.” She lets out with a frustrated huff as she starts to forcefully pack the remaining bits of equipment that were still strewn across her coffee table into the medical bag by her feet. “You haven’t changed at all in the last ten years. You’re still the same overprotective asshole you were before.”

Once she starts to speak it’s like she can’t stop, everything that she’s bottled up within her that she thought she was over spilling out of her non-stop whilst Peter just lies there, on her couch, listening to her silently. “Just because you happened to be bitten by a radioactive spider doesn’t mean it’s up to you to save everyone, that you and you alone are solely responsible for everything and everyone in existence. One man can’t handle that much responsibility by themselves, Peter. You can’t take it all on by yourself!” She can hear her voice getting louder and louder as she speaks but she doesn’t care, Gloria will have a lot to say to her come morning.

“Ten years and you still haven’t learnt not to take everything on by yourself!” The zip on the medical supply bag gets stuck and she tries to force it closed over and over again before she finally gives up, her rising anger dissipating so her voice comes back down to a quiet, shaky whisper, “You still haven’t learnt how to let people in.”

Before she goes off on him again, she gets up to go and pack everything away, without giving him the chance to saying anything in response to her words. Then she goes to fill a glass with water and brings it back to him, along with some pain killers.

“I know these probably won’t do much but I brought you some pain meds. Here,” MJ tells him as she settles back down onto the coffee table. She gets the meds out of the pack and is about to hand them and the glass of water over to Peter when she notices the dazed, slightly pained expression on his face. “What’s wrong?”

Peter doesn’t respond straight away and she thinks he might just brush her off and tell her it’s nothing even when it’s so glaringly obvious something isn’t right, but to her surprise he responds, “Uh, my senses are kind of—kind of going haywire right now. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. A lot overwhelmed, actually.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” She asks softly. She then gets up and goes around and starts to switch off the lights and turn off any sources of light and noise, anything that can be the source of his sensory overload.

“To be honest Em, my senses have always gone crazy when I’m around you,” he says with a laugh-like exhalation, making MJ roll her eyes on reflex but there’s also a sincerity underscoring his words that MJ chooses to ignore in favour of going around the apartment switching things off and closing any open windows that let the sounds of the city in.

When she’s done she feels her way through the dark back to the coffee table. As she’s about to sit down, Peter stops her, “Join me on the couch?” There’s a stretch of silence then he carries on, “Please?”

There’s an openness to his request, a vulnerability and softness to it that MJ finds that she can’t say no to. Later, she’ll tell herself she only got onto the couch so she could keep an eye on him and assess him medically, for now she just settles onto the couch on her side on the sliver of space he creates for her.

Peter moves around some more until she winds up pressed firmly into his side with his arm encircling her from underneath, half lying on top of him with her head pillowed on his chest. The position is so achingly familiar with the contours of her body seeming to fit so well into the planes and ridges of his muscled one, even after all this time, like pieces of a puzzle coming together to form a full, complete picture.

MJ listens to the slow and delicate thud of his heart beneath her where she has her ear pressed and doesn’t dare to move a muscle or to breath too hard or too loudly, just letting herself be enveloped by the warmth of his bare skin.

“This is nice,” Peter says with a quiet whisper that cuts through the heavy silence they’d settled into. MJ focuses on the rumble of his chest as he speaks.

She doesn’t respond, just settles more comfortably into his side instead and she doesn’t miss the way Peter leans his head down to press his lips against the crown of her head, his lips a ghost of a touch that’s barely there but makes a shiver climb up MJ’s spine all the same, though she suppresses it. It shouldn’t be so easy to fall back into old habits like this and she knows staying in this position is not a good idea, but she’s reeled in by the comfort of his embrace— familiar and all encompassing.

They stay like that, wrapped up in each other in the midst of her darkened, quiet apartment for what could be minutes or hours.

MJ assumes Peter has fallen asleep, though she doesn’t dare lift her head to check, too afraid to shatter the fragile tranquillity of the moment. But a minute later, Peter speaks up, “Michelle, I—”

He doesn’t finish what he has to say and she feels his body stiffen beneath her. One moment he’s lying still beneath her, the next moment he’s sliding out from under her and effortlessly placing her down into the space he once occupied before he smoothly leaps over the back of her couch.

“There’s someone coming,” he says as he tries to listen out for whatever he heard happening outside her apartment. “They’re going door to door, looking for someone.” He turns the lamp on the end table by her couch on and starts to head towards the front door, fiddling with the web shooters still on his wrists.

“Peter, wait,” MJ says as she finally scrambles off the couch and goes after him. “Stay back and I’ll get rid of whoever it is.”

“You don’t know who they are or what they’re after, they could be dangerous MJ.”

Peter’s tone is pleading but MJ’s patience is wearing thin, even after a decade, “Not every problem can be solved by punching and webbing people up. Besides, I can look after myself.”

“MJ I really think—”

She interjects to interrupt him before he goes on with the rest of the self-sacrificial, holier than thou bullshit. “Stand there by the side of the door,” she instructs pointing to the wall she wants him to stand against; a demand not a request. “And just—shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

She half expects him to argue, he’s always been very stubborn just like her which had been half the problem, but he relents with a brisk nod, then goes to stand with his back pressed to the wall beside the front door, just like she told him to.

It only takes another half a minute before there’s three loud, quick knocks on her door and though MJ was expecting it she still startles a little bit. When she opens the door, she finds two uniformed police officers stood on the other side.

“Sorry to bother you at such a late hour ma’am, but there was a robbery a few of blocks from here. The perps are still at large, so we’re just going door to door seeing if anyone saw or heard anything,” one of the officers says in greeting, tone ever so polite.

The other officer doesn’t say anything, just gives MJ a small, closed-lip smile but MJ doesn’t miss the way he moves and leans to the side, clearly trying to get a peek into her apartment.

Peter apparently doesn’t miss the shiftiness of that cop either, and from the corner of her eye MJ sees him move away from the wall slightly, getting into a defensive position as if he expects things to turn south. With the hand that’s still wrapped around the door knob on the side of the door Peter is currently stood, she raises her index finger to gesture for him not to move or do anything rash.

“Do you have a description of your perps?” MJ asks the officers with her eyes narrowed, subtlely stepping forward so she can close the door behind her a bit and stop the officer with wandering eyes looking in.

“Uh,” the officer who’d spoken before fumbles.

She doesn’t give him the chance to try and come up with a half-assed answer as she ploughs on, “ So let me get the straight, you have no description of your perps to go off, so you decided to come and look here in a neighborhood that’s largely populated by Black and Latine people.”

The other officer who hasn’t said a word up to now suddenly jumps in, “Lady, if you’re insinuating that we’re being racist when we’re just trying to do our jobs—”

“Oh, I’m not _insinuating_ it,” MJ declares simply, not faltering even under the oppressive weight of their intimidating glares.

The other officer, the one who’d first greeted her finally steps in and places a hand in front of his partner to gently push him back. “Thank you for your time ma’am,” he says before the two of them turn to walk away, though not without turning back to glance at her one last time as they mumble between themselves.

MJ closes the door and presses her forehead into the cool wood, taking a moment to take a deep breath in and then out and repeating it a few times over. She stays like that for a couple of minutes, trying to calm her racing heart and listening out for them.

“Hey, they’re gone,” Peter says with his voice barely above a whisper, suddenly stood right next to her. He reaches a hand up to her shoulder and gently turns her away from the door where she was pressing her forehead so hard into it that she’s sure there are likely indentations of the wood on her skin now.

Once she’s calmed down enough she starts to walk back towards the couch. “I hope you didn’t undo my handiwork with your little gymnastics moves earlier,” she says to him, half joking and half concerned about his physical state.

Peter turns to let her see his side, showing her that her neat stitches are still very much intact. She uses the opportunity to carefully look him over, noting how a lot of the smaller cuts that were spread out over the skin of his torso have already healed over—gone like they were never even there. Obviously, she knows all about his accelerated healing and has seen it action before but it still hasn’t gotten old, probably never will.

“I didn’t destroy your handiwork, and my senses are all better now, thanks to you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

She gets to work removing the blood-stained towels that were draped over her couch and shoves them into bags, deciding she can deal with them later, and swaps them for a sheet, pillow and blanket she has spare in her cupboard.

“You should try to get some sleep,” she tells him after she’s done with his make-shift bed.

Peter doesn’t say anything, just obediently lies down on the couch after taking his web shooters off though he takes the pillow and places it on the opposite end of the couch so he now lies facing her.

MJ tracks his movements as he lies down on the couch and brings the blanket up to just below his waist, leaving his torso uncovered, before he settles with his arm behind his head, his bicep flexing with the movement. She has to pointedly move her gaze back to his face, a slight heat rising in her cheeks and in her belly.

She clears her throat, then, “Do you need anything? Another blanket? Pain meds? Water?”

He shakes his head no and she doesn’t miss the hint of a smirk plastered on his face, smug and confident.

“Okay,” she says quietly, hovering at the other end of the couch, momentarily unsure about what she should do now.

“I haven’t properly thanked you for patching me up and for getting rid of those cops so, thank you Michelle. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t found me,” his tone is completely sincere.

She considers making some joke about how he’d probably be dead in that dumpster but it feels too glib, too soon, so instead she opts for just shrugging as if to say “no biggie” even if they both know that’s it’s anything but.

“I’m gonna head to bed,” she finally says, pointing her thumb back over her shoulder in the vague direction of her bedroom. “Wake me up if you need anything.” She almost tells him not to leave, but it would be too honest and vulnerable a request to make of him.

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything back to her. Then, “Stay?” He focuses his intense gaze on her then in a much quieter voice, “Please, Em.”

She should’ve said no the first time he asked and she should say no this time, leave and go to her bedroom and have some space away from him and all the conflicting feelings swirling within her that his presence brings up, but she finds her legs moving at their own accord to bring her to the couch.

She crouches down as she goes to lie on her side before she pauses, taking a quick look at his wound. It’s healing nicely but she doesn’t want to test her luck, “I don’t wanna—your wound…”

Before she can so much as blink, Peter wraps both his arms around her waist and easily hauls her over him so she’s now lying down on the couch pressed up against the back of the couch, trapped between it and his solid body.

Peter shifts around to fit her more snuggly against his side, her head fitting nicely into the crook of his neck, and moves the blanket so it covers both of their bodies.

In no time at all she feels his body go lax beneath her and his breathing slow right down, letting her know he’s asleep. The first time they ever shared a bed when they were seventeen, MJ almost freaked out at just how slow his breathing and his heart rate got when he was asleep. Peter had come over to check in on her after his patrol before he headed home the way he always did but MJ had other plans, kissing him determinedly before she’d told him she was ready to go all the way. Afterwards she’d lain awake all night, a pleasant ache between her legs and the warm joy of being with Peter buzzing in her head and all through her. The newly awakened awareness of another person’s body, the warmth of it, the smell of it, had ignited a sense of curiosity within her that she’d spent the night studying every part of him intently and listening to the entire universe contained within him with her ear pressed to his chest.

She does the same thing now soon after he falls asleep. In sleep, his face is completely relaxed, with all the burdens and guilt he carries with him fading to nothingness. She thinks of all the nights since that first one at seventeen she’d spent watching him asleep just like this, from seventeen through to nineteen when they were college freshman and Peter would spend many nights in her single dorm. Oh how she’d wished she could take away all his troubles so he could be as relaxed as he was in his sleep all the time.

But for all that she’d wanted to do for him, Peter never gave her the chance and never let her in, not really.

He came to her bleeding just once when they were teenagers and though she eventually managed to stitch him up, she’d been so scared at the sight of him, battered and bruised, and her hands shook so badly that the stitching had come out jagged and messy. Peter didn’t come to her when injured anymore after that, he pretty much avoided talking to her about anything related to his vigilante alter-ego, in fact.

For a while MJ had pushed aside her feelings about him just choosing to shut her out of an entire facet of his life, instead basking in the rush of sexual discovery and allowing herself to be swept up in the engulfing rapture of young love.

They were happy for just over three years, tentative as it may have been. But when one half of a couple spends over half their time moonlighting as an arachnid-themed superhero, you can only go so long without addressing the elephant, or spider, in the room.

Between the laughs, and tender kisses and promises they shared, MJ didn’t miss the haunted shadow that lurked in his gaze. She didn’t miss the way sometimes he’d randomly stare off into the distance in a near-fugue state, clearly having been triggered by something innocuous they’d have seen on the screen or something someone would have said. Then they were the nightmares he also tried his best to hide from her.

Cracks began to form in the carefully constructed façade of their young relationship until they reached a breaking point during their freshman year of college. Peter had gone off the grid, not picking up her calls or answering any of her texts, for nearly two weeks with no explanation and MJ had only found out he’d spent that time in intensive care following a near-fatal fight with the Green Goblin after interrogating and threatening Ned.

That had been it for MJ. She loved Peter so much, more than she’s ever loved any person romantically since, but if Peter was so unwilling to share that aspect of his life with her that he’d rather ignore her for weeks than let her know he was hurt, she didn’t see how they were supposed to build a solid foundation for a relationship that would last them into adulthood.

So when he’d swung by her dorm room after being discharged she’d told him she couldn’t do this anymore, cheeks wet from the tears that were endlessly falling down and an unpleasant ache blooming within her chest. The worst part of it all though, was that Peter hadn’t fought her, fought for _them_. He’d just taken it, told her he understood then left, never to be seen again after she told him to leave.

In the weeks following the breakup, she would constantly check her phone and always left her sixth floor window open, _just in case_. But just like he’d just taken it when she broke up with him and screamed at him to just let her in, he didn’t act, didn’t try to contact her or talk it out. He just accepted it.

Over the years she’s thought of him often- thought about what could have been, thought about the what ifs, thought about if they could've made it all work. And now here he is in her apartment, cuddling her on her small couch whilst half naked.

 _Funny how life works_ , is the last thought she has before she drifts off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

* * *

She wakes up some hours later to her apartment being bathed in the brassy orange of the rising sun outside which sneaks in through gaps in her blinds. She has a crick in her neck and a dull ache in her back from sleeping on the uncomfortable small couch all night, but she feels more well rested than she has in a very long time. It’s embarrassing how easily she fell back into old habits, being able to sleep so easily in Peter’s arms like she was always able to do.

She lifts her head off his chest to look up at his face and finds him still fast asleep, so she gently untangles herself from him, limb by limb, and sneaks out from the cocoon of the blanket that was secured around the two of them as they slept. She then heads to her bathroom to brush her teeth and have a quick shower.

As she washes her body she’s acutely aware of her sleeping ex in the other room, who is separated from her by a singular wall but she manages to shake away those intrusive thoughts, instead focusing on showering as quickly as she can then quietly padding to her bedroom to get dressed.

When she comes out to the living room afterwards she finds Peter now awake and he greets her with a small grin on his face before he stretches his body in a move that causes the blanket to fall down his chest, a move that MJ’s eyes follow without her meaning to. She catches herself and quickly snaps her gaze away. “You should go shower, I’ve left a clean towel in the bathroom for you,” she tells him.

“Thanks MJ,” he mumbles as he gets up. He pauses momentarily to fold up the blanket and sheet and piles them with the pillow on one end of the couch, then, “Uh, which one is your bathroom?”

She nods her head in the direction of her bathroom, smirking at how he looks inhabiting the space of her apartment, walking around barefoot and dressed in only a pair of boxers in a way that’s both ridiculous yet doesn’t feel entirely wrong either.

“Wait,” she stops him in his tracks just as he’s about to go through the open door. “Let me check your injuries over.”

She walks right up to him and starts to quickly inspect him, checking over every inch of him, only to be interrupted by Peter, “You know MJ, you don’t have to make up medical reasons behind you wanting to just check me out.”

She snorts incredulously then shoves him towards the open bathroom door, “Get out of here.”

He turns to waggle his eyebrows comically at her before he closes the door behind him, leaving MJ to head to the kitchen where she busies herself with making chocolate chip pancakes; they were always his favorite.

She has just finished stacking the pancakes onto plates, one for each of them and a third with an additional batch because she remembers what a large appetite Peter has due to his increased metabolism, when Peter walks out of the bathroom freshly-showered.

He has wrapped himself up in her fluffy robe she left hanging on the hook behind the door, pulling the hood which has little mouse ears on it up so he looks ridiculous enough to make her giggle at the sight of him. “Suits you,” she says, raising her eyebrows and gesturing to the ears.

“Why thank you,” he says before bowing his head slightly.

A charged but altogether not uncomfortable silence unreels between them, hints of smiles still remaining on both of their faces, until MJ stops the blooming moment. “I made pancakes,” she sweeps a hand out over said pancakes laid out on her small two-person kitchen table.

“I honestly don’t know how to thank you for everything.”

“Just shut up and eat,” she retorts as she settles into her chair whilst he sits down opposite her.

She watches him closely as he takes his first tentative bite of her pancakes, carefully chewing before finally saying something, “When did you learn how to cook?”

His tone is so surprised that it would be offensive if she hadn’t actually been a terrible cook when they were younger. She’s only learnt how to cook recently out of necessity after moving into her own place but that doesn’t stop her from protesting at his comment, “Hey!”

Peter just chuckles happily.

After that, they eat in silence and with his fast metabolism and the fact that he probably hasn’t eaten anything since the night before, Peter finishes the pancakes on his plate plus the extras she made him before she’s even halfway through her own.

When he’s done eating he just watches her with an unreadable expression on his face, and MJ tries to not be affected by it, to ignore him and continue eating her breakfast.

“I was ambushed by Scorpion and Vulture,” Peter says, seemingly out of the blue.

“What?”

“Last night. Karen got an alert about something big happening near here but it was a set up they’d been planning ever since they got out of prison a couple of months ago, and when I got there they were waiting for me. I just managed to get out but as you saw, they did a real number on me,” he says, gesturing to his torso that’s covered in the soft cotton of her robe.

She swallows down the remainder of her pancakes, then, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want to,” he replies simply, like anything between them could ever be that simple. MJ doesn’t respond to his words so Peter carries on, “That time I came to your house in our junior year, I saw how much I scared you and I vowed to myself to never scare you like that again. I thought I was protecting you by keeping you in the dark about everything I went through, that we could just be a normal teenage couple that didn’t have to worry about Spider-Man things.”

He pauses for a beat, playing around with the now empty coffee mug in his hand, taking a moment to read the text printed on it; _suck my ass_ printed in bright pink comic sans, a gag gift for her birthday from Felicia. He smirks at the text then carries on, “I realised that making that decision was unfair on you. I didn’t give you the chance to decide for yourself what you could and couldn’t handle, and I regretted it so much. I still regret it to this day, Em. I was so stupid and wrong and I hurt you, and I’m so sorry. I don’t think I ever actually said those words to you so, I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Peter—”

MJ goes to say something but Peter continues on, “I know saying I’m sorry ten years later doesn’t undo what I did, doesn’t take away the pain I caused you but you have to know that I really do mean it. I loved you so much, _still do_ , and hurting you and shutting you out was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

MJ tries to interject again, “Peter—”

“I should’ve fought for us when you broke up with me. I should've called you or come back to your dorm to apologize and tried to work things out. I wanted to, I just didn't—”

Peter finally stops when MJ comes round the table to come and stand next to his sitting form, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder to signal for him to push his chair back. He does, leaving enough room for MJ to sit on his lap.

She places a hand underneath his chin to tilt his face up towards her then she just looks over him, her hand that was resting on his chin following her eyes as they move over him, re-learning

Peter doesn’t move a muscle and just allows her to stare searchingly at him then eventually, finally, she closes the gap between them and presses her lips firmly against his.

This isn’t the kiss of two teenagers learning and experiencing their firsts together. It’s a kiss of two adults who’ve lived their lives along two separate paths, growing and evolving, loving other people before being brought back together. And yet MJ feels that same warmth spread through her body right to the tips of her fingers and toes that she’d felt during their first kiss when they were shy sixteen year olds.

She moves her legs so she’s now straddling his lap so their centres brush each other the way their exploring tongues do.

Discontent with the barriers of clothing that separate their bodies and stop them from being skin-to-skin the way she so desperately wants, MJ unties his— _her_ —robe, happily noting how he’s not wearing his boxers underneath it, then her hands immediately start roaming over the skin that’s exposed when the robe falls open.

She refamiliarizes herself with the feeling of his muscles beneath her hungry fingers, the power she knows is contained within this sculpted body of his, fading away as he completely surrenders to her.

Peter must feel the same frustration she did at how their clothing covers them up because he interrupts their heated kissing to tug MJ’s t-shirt over her head, pausing to stare dazedly and awe-struck at her bared breasts as if he’s never seen her naked before or seen countless other people naked in the time between.

When he’s done admiring with his eyes, he dips his head forward to press a slow, lingering kiss to her sternum. From there his lips trail to the right, laving the dusky skin with wet kisses as he goes along. He sucks a hickey onto the swell of her breast and MJ doesn’t mind, she wants him to stake a claim—that she’s his and he’s hers, brought back together after all this time.

He swirls his tongue over her nipple one, two, three times, his licks quickly turning into gentle sucking before he uses his teeth, the barely-there scrape causing MJ to buck her hips down to where his erection is pressing into her inner thigh.

He alternates between left and right, ensuring he gives equal attention to each breast in turn and MJ’s grinding movements grow both more purposeful yet desperate, fluid yet mechanical all at once. All she wants is to take her shorts and underwear off and slide him in home, either with her bent over the table as he drives into her, causing her table to scrape across the tiles of her kitchen floor, or just like this, with him sat beneath her completely at her mercy as she rides him until her heart’s content.

She wants it all, and all at once but just manages to catch herself and between kisses, pants out a, “Bedroom.”

Taking her with him, Peter stands up with her in his arms and MJ tightens her hold on him, her legs coming up to wrap around his waist like a reflex. He then walks them across her apartment and through to her bedroom.

He carefully deposits her on the bed then steps back to stand at the foot and just watch her. MJ also watches him for a moment, her gaze tracing his face, down his chest and abs which she gets a peek of through the opening of the undone robe. Her eyes carry on down their route to where he’s hard and wanting and suddenly she’s no longer content to wait so she gets up into a sitting position and scoots over to the edge of the bed where he stands.

Without hesitating, she wraps a hand around him and lazily pumps her hand a few times, causing Peter to groan lowly.

She entertains the idea of sucking him off, thinks about what he’d do if she were to take him into her mouth right now; does he still get the same facial expression, a cross between amazement and unbridled pleasure, like he can’t believe this is really happening, the same way he always used to each time she gave him head?

Before she can test it out, Peter pulls her hand away from him, and gently pushes her onto her back with two guiding hands on her shoulders. After that he makes quick work of stripping her out of her shorts and underwear, nearly ripping her underwear off in the process from his eagerness.

Michelle leans up on her elbows to watch him as he shrugs off the robe that still loosely hangs over his shoulders, taking her time to appreciate the view. But she finds herself collapsing onto her back once more when Peter gets on his knees and drapes her legs which hang over the edge of the bed over his shoulders instead, leaving her spread open for him.

He takes his time peppering wet kisses to the insides of her thighs, occasionally sucking on and gently biting the skin, building her up before even so much as breathing on her center. His hands which rest on her sides move slowly, exploratorily, up and down, mapping all the valleys and peaks of her body.

The sensation of the callouses of his fingers against her soft skin, coupled with the kisses he laves on her as he gradually climbs higher and higher along her thighs has her so worked up that by the time he licks experimentally along her slit, her hips buck up, lifting her ass off the bed. Peter simply sits up to follow her and moves a hand to rest underneath her to keep her body angled up towards his mouth.

He’s tentative with his movements, a teasing lick trailing from her opening where he laps up her wetness then drags it up along to her clit which he gives a probing flick with his tongue. It’s like he’s trying to re-learn what makes her tick, what movement of his tongue will get her toes to curl and if MJ wasn’t so gone already, she’d tell him there’s no need. Peter has an impeccable memory that means he remembers exactly how to push her buttons from the hours they spent as teenagers learning each other’s bodies. And embarrassingly, she thinks those hours they spent exploring one another’s bodies have defined her tastes and desires so much that she’s compared every partner since to Peter in one way or the other, consciously or subconsciously.

Paying attention to the way she reacts to each swipe of his tongue; his movements shift from being tentative to being insistent. He swirls his tongue on her clit, occasionally sucking, until MJ finds herself grinding against his face uncontrollably. Peter doesn’t seem to mind, humming contentedly, his voice vibrating against her and the warmth of his breath blanketing her labia.

“I want more,” she whimpers out, hand gripping his hair tightly as her grinding movements grow more erratic.

Peter acquiesces, lowering her back onto the bed then slipping his hand out from beneath her before he brings it to tease a single knuckle into her entrance.

“Please, please, please,” she pants out a needy plea.

He withdraws his single digit, introducing a second the next time. He finds a good rhythm, his mouth focused on her clit whilst he moves his fingers, curling them just the way she likes and the combination of it all proves to be too much.

MJ’s hips starts to buck uncontrollably, her body writhing with the force of her orgasm and she holds onto his hair for clemency as she feels her orgasm grow from a smoulder to a blazing inferno, the heat of it spreading out from where Peter still has his face pressed against to the tips of her fingers and her toes which curl against the expanse of his back.

When Peter has finished lapping up everything she offers he finally pulls away, leaving MJ panting and still trying to catch her breath whilst her legs shake.

He gets up off the floor and crouches over her, wrapping an arm around her waist before he lifts her up and moves her up the bed and deposits her closer to the headboard so her head rests on a pillow. He then crawls up to lie beside her.

Still too sensitive for anything else, they just lie on their sides and languidly make out.

“Can you taste yourself on my tongue?” Peter mumbles when he pulls away from her lips. He pecks her once, twice, then, “Can you taste how good you taste?”

MJ’s voice is shot from her earlier orgasm so she’s hardly capable of speech right now, all she can do is nod her head in response to his filthy questions before pulling him back in for more kisses.

Peter seems to have other ideas though, pulling away again before continuing his reverent murmurs, “God, do you know how often I’ve thought about this? About you?”

He’s kissing her again before she can respond to tell him she’s often thought about him, too. They carry on making out, tongues moving in tandem in a way that’s familiar yet new, a promise for what the future may hold.

When she feels ready, MJ gently taps at his shoulder to get him to pull away from where their lips are connected. She trails her lips along the angle of his jaw and up to his ear, tugging at it with her teeth before she whispers, “I want you to fuck me.” She trails one of her hands that had been resting on his shoulders down to wrap around him once more, pumping him a couple of times to punctuate her next request, “I need you inside me.”

“Condom?” Peter asks through a soft moan.

MJ rolls over to reach into the top drawer of her bedside table, taking out a foil package she quickly rips open with her teeth before throwing the wrapper to one side whilst her other hand starts to guide the condom onto him. 

She takes her sweet time to put it on him, revelling in the way he subconsciously bucks into her hand until Peter grows impatient, slapping her hand away to finish the job before he tips her onto her back and hooks a hand under her knee and bends it. “Do you want it like this?”

MJ nods wordlessly, letting her other leg that he’s not holding up uselessly fall open to the other side, creating space for him in the chasm between.

Peter enters her slowly, allowing her to take him inch by pain-stakingly slow inch until he finally bottoms out in her, at which point the two of them sigh contentedly, a feeling like relief washing over them.

With one hand still holding up her leg whilst the other rests beside her head, his forearm helping him keep his full weight off her, he starts to move. With each thrust, he drives into her in one, rapid move until he bottoms out, the stretch of him evoking a feeling of all-consuming pleasure with a twinge of pain that causes her mouth to fall open, a sound that’s somewhere between a gasp, a moan and a whimper coming out of her. He’ll then pull out slowly in direct contrast to how he drills into her, so she feels every inch of him, every ridge.

He never takes his eyes off her the entire time and neither does MJ. His eyes are a window into the universe within him that she once spent each moment together trying to get to the center of. She wants to dive into the swirling pits of them, she wants him to fuck so deep into her until they become intertwined as one. She wants, she wants, _she wants_.

“It’s always been you, Michelle,” Peter pants out, grinding into her so his pubic bone brushes against where she’s most sensitive whilst he buries himself deeper and deeper within her.

Unable to put into words all the feelings that rattle around within her, she moans then wraps her arms around his neck to pull him down until he eventually lies all his weight on her. Now their bodies are pressed together at every possible point of contact, and she feels fully enveloped by all of him, cherished.

They try to kiss but it’s more just breathing into each other, the air from their lungs mingling into one as their bodies slide together, quiet and sweat-slicked.

MJ has some vague awareness of the way her moans are growing louder and louder along with the rhythmic thump of her headboard against the wall, but she doesn’t care, half-transported to some place outside of herself with the mind-numbing pleasure Peter draws out of her whilst the other half of her is wholly present, not even daring to blink for she doesn’t want to miss a moment of this.

She lifts the leg that was resting on the bed up to wrap around his waist and urge him closer, tighter, _more_. She can’t get enough of him.

“I’m yours Peter. You can do whatever you want to me,” she gasps out, short fingernails biting into the skin of his back.

Her declaration unleashes something within Peter as he moves up onto his knees and hooks his other hand under her other thigh, getting a firm grip on her before he starts to fuck into her with more fervour and force.

MJ feels light-headed she’s so delirious with pleasure. The sounds he makes blend together with the sounds coming out of her, all of it blending together into a singular cacophony of their pleasure.

It’s too much, yet it’s never enough. She wants to fall helplessly into the tide of her orgasm and let it drown her, yet she wants this moment to never end. All her wants are seemingly contradictory apart from this: she wants Peter, she wants him and her together, she wants _them_.

When she finally comes, she’s slammed out of herself and it’s like there’s nothing that remains besides the kaleidoscope of pleasure, numbness giving way to an overwhelming, pervasive feeling that’s just Peter, Peter, _Peter_.

She clutches him tightly, both with her arms and with the fluttering ring of muscle wrapped around him which draws his orgasm out of him until he’s collapsing onto her. He offers her a few more stuttering, shallow thrusts as he comes, mumbling a quiet, “I love you,” into the skin of her neck he teethes at that MJ doesn’t hear so much as she feels settle within her, burrowing and settling deep within her heart.

He doesn’t move to pull out of her immediately, the two of them just lying there in a sweaty, breathless heap for a stretch of time. When he does eventually pull out, MJ winces but already misses the feeling of him, the fullness, despite the throbbing ache already blossoming within her.

Peter ties off the condom and quickly throws it in the trashcan by her dresser before he collapses back on her bed next her on his front, with his arm slung over her where she still lies on her back.

His hand moves aimlessly over the taut skin of her stomach, drawing nonsensical patterns over the skin, and the two of them giggle euphorically at nothing in particular.

MJ has so many wants and so many needs. She _needs_ to check they didn’t aggravate his healing wound. She _needs_ to get up and pee. She _needs_ to have a conversation with Peter about what, if anything, is gonna happen with them now. She _wants_ to go again already, spend hours reacquainting herself with his body even if she may not be able to walk or sit down properly tomorrow.

There is so much to be done but MJ decides all of it can wait. For now she’s just content to lie here with Peter, let herself bask in the warmth of his affection and revel in the feeling of having returned home.

**Author's Note:**

> I mentioned before that the last chap of [Tough Luck](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072977/chapters/63414199) was inspired by an ep of 'daredevil' bc I've been rewatching it a lot recently and it's starting to bleed into my writing, well, this fic was inspired by ep 1x02 of that lol. Hope you enjoyed and as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated!!
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://tvfanatic97-2.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/dayaspsychic) x


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